The heavy weight of death: how anti‐fat bias is affected by weight‐based group membership and existential threat. Issue 3 (19th September 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Seibert, Ann; Schindler, Simon; Reinhard, Marc‐André
• Is Part Of: Journal of applied social psychology. Volume 45:Issue 3(2015)
• Page Start: 139
• Page End: 146
• Publication Date: 2014-09-19
• Subjects: Social psychology -- Periodicals; Behavior -- Periodicals; Psychology, Social -- Periodicals; 302
• DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12283
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0021-9029

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Anti‐fat bias is marked by a devaluation of overweight people compared with non‐overweight persons. Even though belonging to the same group, research on social identity theory (SIT) indicates that overweight people also devaluate overweight others. Merging insights from research on anti‐fat bias, SIT, and terror management theory, our study (<italic>n</italic> = 101) provides new insights on motivational aspects of anti‐fat bias by investigating the effects of existential threat on the evaluation of non‐overweight and overweight people. Results revealed that participants in the existential threat condition displayed in‐group bias: Participants perceiving themselves as non‐overweight showed more pronounced anti‐fat bias compared with participants in the non‐death threat condition. In contrast, participants perceiving themselves as overweight demonstrated less anti‐fat bias than controls.</p> </abstract>